Parents Plead For Help Finding Missing Daughter

SAN DIEGO -- Six days after their daughter disappeared, the parents of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam publicly renewed their belief that their daughter is alive.

MISSING Danielle van Dam 4 feet tall, 58 pounds Blue eyes, dirty blond hair Possibly wearing blue pajamas INFORMATION (619) 531-2000 Danielle Missing Flyer DISCUSSION Share your feelings, thoughts for van Dam family

Brenda and Damon van Dam addressed the national media Thursday near their home in Sabre Springs.

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Brenda van Dam Addresses Media

Brenda and Damon (pictured, right) asked the public to continue helping the family get the word out about their daughter's disappearance.

"Please, please continue to get the word out about our little girl nationwide. While investigators are working around-the-clock, all of you watching can help us by continuing to distribute fliers and posters so her picture can be seen nationwide," Brenda van Dam said.

Brenda said her "biggest hope" was that Danielle's abductor would "realize right now this has gotten really, really big and they've made a big mistake and they are going to let my daughter walk away."

She also had a direct message for her missing child, in case she might wind up seeing a broadcast of the news conference: "I would hope that if she sees me, she knows we are all waiting for her at home," she said. "Please ask this person to just let you go. We love you. We want you back."

An intensive multiagency search over the last five days has turned up no sign of the child.

Detectives did take a neighbor in for questioning Tuesday and seized items of potential evidence from his home and vehicles.

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More On David Westerfield

David A. Westerfield (pictured, left), who lives two doors down from the van Dam family, voluntarily submitted to interrogations and willingly took authorities on a tour of a desert location where he said that he camped out Saturday and Sunday.

By late Tuesday, authorities "had no plans to arrest" Westerfield in connection with the presumed abduction of the child, according to 10News.

The 50-year-old man was free to go home on returning from the East County wilderness with detectives.

"At our request, he took us around to where he was over the weekend," San Diego police Lt. Jim Collins said, declining to specify the locale.

Westerfield, a friend of the missing girl's family, told police that he left on the solitary outing Saturday morning in a recreational vehicle he owns, Collins said.

Officers impounded the RV, and spent Wednesday morning searching through it, 10News reported.

Authorities already had seized Westerfield's Toyota 4Runner. They also went through his home, carrying out boxes and bulging bags of household items.

Collins stressed that the design engineer was not under arrest, though detectives had "developed a little more information, that made us want to inquire a little more about (his) house and about the resident."

"We have not totally focused on him," Collins told reporters. "We are exploring all of the other possibilities, and we haven't focused on him as the only possible suspect."

When reporters asked Westerfield if he knew where Danielle was, he shook his head, said no, and walked into his house.

Danielle's parents Wednesday told reporters that they could think of no one that they felt might have abducted their daughter.

"There's no one we know like that," Brenda van Dam said.

Danielle Last Seen Friday Night

Danielle's parents told investigators that the last time either of them saw their child was when Damon van Dam put his daughter to bed after 10 p.m. Friday.

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Parents Plead For Danielle's Safe Return

Brenda van Dam said that when she returned from a night of socializing with friends -- including Westerfield -- at about 2 a.m. Saturday, she noticed a side door open to the residence, but did not think to check on Danielle.

Westerfield told authorities that he had run across Brenda van Dam and her companions at a Poway bar Friday night.

"They were having a good time, just playing pool with people and joking around," Westerfield said earlier this week, adding that he'd danced with his neighbor before leaving around 10:30 p.m.

Police officials have repeatedly said they do not consider the parents suspects in the girl's disappearance, though they point out that no one has been completely ruled out.

Danielle's mother said that she and her husband had recounted their version of the weekend's events while hooked up to a polygraph machine.

Law enforcement teams have been coordinating the all-out search for Danielle from a temporary command post near the family's home on Mountain Pass Road, combing the area with canines, a helicopter, and foot patrols.

Information Needed, Reward Offered

Police officials and family members asked anyone with information on Danielle's whereabouts to call (619) 531-2000 or visit DanielleMissing.com. The family also has set up a hotline for tips at (888) 664-6664.

A $10,000 reward is now being offered to help find Danielle.

"We believe that this $10,000 reward that came from individual Americans across the country will help this little girl come home," said Douglas Pierce, spokesman for the Millennium Children's Fund.

The missing girl is 4 feet tall, weighs 58 pounds, and has blue eyes and blond hair. She was wearing blue pajamas with a flower pattern before she disappeared.